What Is Larry Summers Wearing?

tweedledeeDavid

Leonhardt had an interesting profile of Larry Summers in

the NYT yesterday. Leonhardt reckons that Summers could (and probably should)

become a Democratic Henry Kissinger, intimately involved in policy decisions

despite not having an official government job.

Leonhardt also notes that Summers now has a "lucrative" part-time

job at hedge fund DE Shaw – and given that John Edwards made half a million

bucks at Fortress Group just for a consulting gig, you can be sure that Summers’s

remuneration at DE Shaw is well into the seven figures.

So why, in that case, does Summers, in the accompanying photograph (left, by

Nigel Parry), seem to be wearing the world’s most ill-fitting suit? I can think

of five possible explanations:

  • Summers refuses to admit to himself that he’s gained weight, and therefore

    still buys suits in his old size.

  • Summers likes to present himself as a classic rumpled forgetful professor,

    and therefore deliberately buys suits which don’t fit.

  • Summers really is a classic rumpled forgetful professor, and showed

    up to the NYT photoshoot wearing an old, ill-fitting suit.

  • Nigel Parry, the photographer, or his stylist, wanted to present Summers

    as a classic rumpled forgetful professor, and therefore put him in an ill-fitting

    suit.

  • Nigel Parry, the photographer, or his stylist, made a mistake, and somehow

    ended up putting Summers into an ill-fitting suit, but hey, it made for a

    great photo, because everybody likes to see their former Treasury secretaries

    looking like Tweedledee occasionally.

Anybody got any better ideas?

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